Decorated for bravery but guilt-ridden for innocent deaths, eighteen-year-old Corporal Winston Blake falls in love with a native girl and fathers her child. Transferred and discharged before the child's birth, she disappears into the post-war chaos. He struggles for redemption through his career in the Church and active membership in the Black movement. Savagely beaten by the Klan he, though white, rises to preeminence as one of the leaders of the movement. Blake falls in love with a married woman whose husband is stricken with a mysterious disease. At his death, three years later, they are reunited. His long-lost daughter, adopted and her name changed, has become a talented violinist and composer. Invited to play at the 20th reunion of Blake's Division, she plays her composition, The Silver Star. Sensing a kinship, he invites her to dinner and questioning her, determines that she must be his daughter. But she rejects him. Heartbroken, he flies to Selma for one last planning meeting of the Blake leadership. Confronted by the Klan member responsible for his beating years ago, he is mortally wounded. Before his death, Blake and his daughter are reconciled. . . returning The Silver Starmedal he had given to her mother.